


the intoxicating sound of freedom

by riririn



Category: One Piece
Genre: Character Study, Thriller Bark reference
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-03
Updated: 2016-04-03
Packaged: 2018-05-31 00:28:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6448150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riririn/pseuds/riririn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because Zoro knows that Luffy is freedom come alive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the intoxicating sound of freedom

When Luffy stops he tells Zoro that

the reason he left out to the sea was to be free. Of the land, of the rules. Just free.

He tells how in his childhood he met a man with red hair and a straw hat and how that man showed him how to just _be._ To be free.

And Zoro listens, because even though his reasons to leave the place he was born in were wildly different, a world apart, even now ( _at the beginning of all things to come_ ) he can see that Luffy is something else entirely. Someone else entirely, someone who can change the world if he so felt, Zoro might say if he ever felt inclined to voice his thoughts.

He never does.

He watches, though. ( _He learns_.)

 

* * *

 

 

He learns

that Luffy is not smart. This is something Zoro learned back when he was still tied to that wooden post ( _when he was_ _on the threshold of the rest of his life_ ).

But it does not matter, because Luffy knows exactly what he wants, and he knows how to get it, even.  Or more precisely, he knows how to get _more_ of what he wants.

Because Luffy only wants freedom. He wants freedom to go where he wants, to speak to whomever he wants to, to go out and eat all day if he wants to. Luffy wishes to spend time with his friends, maybe make more friends, and to help _them_ , in turn, to do whatever it is that they want to do. Help them however he can.

The others need it, too. Luffy’s help. Zoro doesn’t really think he needed it that much, because he had been on the path already. But still…

Luffy wakes something in Zoro, something he didn’t think existed, at least not in the way it turned out to do.

Because he _believes_ in in Luffy.

_(Luffy is the man who is going to be the pirate king, he tells Bartholomew Kuma, and means it.)_

Luffy states facts, only facts. And after watching so many of them come true, Zoro can’t help but know that the greatest one, as well, will come true in the future. He is no less certain of himself, his dreams, but. He cannot be the greatest swordsman unless Luffy is the ( _not really_ ) king of pirates ( _because pirates don’t have real kings and Luffy doesn’t even truly understand how others perceive the word because it means something utterly different to him_ ).

Zoro needed Luffy to show him just how great, exactly, dreams could be. ( _And they can be great enough that your own ambitions are nothing but ripples in the water, great enough that they are only truths yet to happen_.)

Because Zoro knows and accepts that Luffy’s dreams are _freedom_ , in itself, past and present and everything that is yet to come, and even beyond that.

**Author's Note:**

> I've been thinking about Luffy and his worldview lately. He just seems like the kind of guy who can't fit into normal society (and I think Gan Fall even says something along those lines at the end of Skypiea). But yet, he seems like the kind of guy who can respect other's choices as well, even if he doesn't get them. (And yeah, I know he doesn't really respect Sanji's initial choice to stay at Baratie, but honestly, Sanji didn't really want to stay there, and I think Luffy sensed that.)
> 
> Also, even though there are a lot of characters who are smarter than Zoro, he has a certain way with people. He gets why people do things.


End file.
